Do we know if they are going to do some sort of primitive vertical integration on this launch? Like with a crane? The need for the rocket to be vertical could explain both the delay in launch and the early ingress of the TEL.

I suppose there is no thread for those people who booked a flight to Cape Canaveral to see the launch and landing on the 16th to meet up and have a barbecue instead? Just wondering, because I will be one of them...

Do we know if they are going to do some sort of primitive vertical integration on this launch? Like with a crane? The need for the rocket to be vertical could explain both the delay in launch and the early ingress of the TEL.

Though I think that idea a bit far out...

This particular NRO payload does not require vertical integration. It will use the standard horizontal integration flow.Unlike what some people think the requirement for vertical integration applies to only a limited number of US national security missions.

A post by William Graham on 2017 March 30 to the NROL-76 discussion on NSF, alerted me to the fact that the first stage of a Falcon 9 GTO launch could RTLS, given a payload sufficiently low in mass. And he had a specific payload in mind:

"I haven't done the maths, but I'm wondering if Falcon would, hypothetically, be able to return to the launch sitefollowing a GTO launch with a sufficiently light payload - such as a 2,000 kg 702SP."

Poster envy887 responded:

"Most likely, yes, RTLS is possible. The F9 upper stage can accelerate a 2,000 kg payload through about 1,300 m/s more dv than it can with a 5,300 kg payload like SES-10 which is just on the edge of ASDS recovery. Even a payload as large as 3500 kg could potentially RTLS.""

They *might* have been doing TEL throwback tests. The TEL kept going from 45-ish degrees to vertical. Then it was back at 45... and so on and so forth. Never actually saw it "throwback", so someone with better knowledge can correct. Just reporting what I saw.

They *might* have been doing TEL throwback tests. The TEL kept going from 45-ish degrees to vertical. Then it was back at 45... and so on and so forth. Never actually saw it "throwback", so someone with better knowledge can correct. Just reporting what I saw.

Is it back to horizontal with the launch table yet? That would be great for rollback and SF next week.

They *might* have been doing TEL throwback tests. The TEL kept going from 45-ish degrees to vertical. Then it was back at 45... and so on and so forth. Never actually saw it "throwback", so someone with better knowledge can correct. Just reporting what I saw.

Is it back to horizontal with the launch table yet? That would be great for rollback and SF next week.

We will see - or not see... Stealth for satellites is a really complicated issue, as it has to work in front of the cold space background for a broad range of wave lengths. Therefore there were pretty few attempts in this area (e.g. LES-9, the MISTY satellites or the still unacknowledged PROWLER.